National CPS News Archive

National News Coverage

Common household dust has long been known to carry pesticides, allergens and other irritants. But the dust that coats your television sets may finally answer why virtually every American tested has traces of a chemical flame retardant that may be harmful.

The flame retardants have been used for decades in television sets, computer wire insulation, carpet padding and many other common household products. They have been found in household dust, but no one has been able to say how they got there and from what specific products.

MANSFIELD, Conn. -- State police are investigating how a 7-month-old boy died while in state foster care Monday night.

Michael Anthony Brown Jr. was unresponsive when emergency officials arrived at the foster home Monday night. He was pronounced dead after being airlifted to the Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford.

'Killer Cribs' study by Friends of the Earth finds babies and infants are at risk; group asks manufacturer Graco to halt use of toxic chemicals; Legislation advancing in California

Toxic fire retardant chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, and neurological and other health problems are prevalent in common baby products, according to a study released today by national environmental group Friends of the Earth. "We're poisoning our children, one crib at a time," said Russell Long, Vice-President of Friends of the Earth.

School district officials scramble to find answers to parents' questions regarding the arrest of Lincoln Middle School teacher Thomas Arthur Beltran.

As upset parents demand answers regarding a Lincoln Middle School teacher who was arrested for allegedly molesting possibly as many as 10 students-and who was investigated for sexual abuse two years ago-school officials are scrambling to come up with new policies to address such cases.

A few days ago I shared this outrageous story with you-Father Jailed Because His Adult Daughter Fails to Get Her GED. The father Brian Gegner was ordered to see to it that his daughter gets her GED, but she has not done so.

The daughter's problems in school came at a time when she lived with her mother. The daughter herself-now almost 19-years-old-says that she alone is responsible for her own problems and that her father shouldn't be blamed. Nevertheless, the father is in jail on a six month sentence.

When Elizabeth Garcia met Barney the purple dinosaur during her Make-A-Wish Foundation trip in January, the little girl, then 7, was all smiles and hugs.

Her disposition was markedly different Tuesday, when she saw her parents for the second time since she was taken into Child Protective Services custody in late April. "She didn't look happy at all," her mother, Debbie Garcia, said. "She looked so sad and pale."

Texas Child Protective Services conceded Tuesday that a pregnant teen taken from a polygamists' ranch in West Texas was an adult when she gave birth in San Marcos last month

...casting some doubt on the statistics released by the agency that more than 20 underage girls were pregnant or had given birth. The teenager, 18-year-old Pamela Jeffs, gave birth to a boy on April 29. CPS officials said she was one of 27 girls in a "disputed" minor category who once told CPS they were adults but later indicated they were under 18.

The human rights group Black Mental Health UK (BMHUK) will this week aim to ratchet up pressure for a government rethink on the national DNA database, although not (as has much of the critique to date) based on general civil liberties arguments.

BMHUK is taking on the government specifically on the contention that the policy is "criminalising" people with mental health problems. And what's worse, it will argue, it is going largely unnoticed and undebated.

As anti-male as family courts are, this story is still a little hard to believe. The case is described in the story Man Jailed After Daughter Fails To Get GED (WCPO TV, 5/9/08).

"A Fairfield man is in jail because his daughter hasn't gotten her General Equivalency Diploma (GED)." "A judge ordered the father to stay on top of his daughter's education months ago and when that order wasn't followed, Brian Gegner was sentenced to 180-days in the Butler County jail."

Six years ago, Lynnette Moats' husband walked out on her and their young daughter, taking the mobile home with him. A college dropout, Moats was faced with either getting extra jobs going back to school. She survived by moving in with her brother's ex-wif

They always had health insurance, but never could qualify for government assistance. One of them always earned just a hair over the cutoff line for food stamps. The two also decided to homeschool the girls so they could see them more often. The decision meant the women sometimes had to bring their children to class.

The state said Friday that it has settled accusations that child protective services workers unfairly discriminated against a disabled Livingston woman. The settlement will cost the state $330,000.

Geri Glass, bound to a wheelchair following a car accident, said the workers put onerous and unfair conditions on her. Glass said that when her son Gage was a newborn, state Child and Family Services workers told her they would take her son if they learned she had been left alone with him.

Texas child welfare authorities have begun drafting service plans for the children taken from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.

"It's the plan that has to address the permanency," said Mary Walker, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. "Whether or not children will be unified with their parents or whether or not they will remain in foster care."

Need another reason why the Arizona Legislature needs to pry open a few of those lead-lined windows that allow Child Protective Services to protect itself from the prying eyes of outsiders? Two words: Dave Wigton.

For nearly 30 years, Wigton has worked at the agency whose only job is to protect children. Then last week, he was accused of turning a little girl into his own personal sex toy and, as a bonus, sharing kiddie porn with a teenage boy.

My ever increasing email has come to include the names of women who have actually died (Pamela Gaston) in the effort to effect a change in the broken, abusive practices of DHS-CPD.

I am humbled by the experience and efforts made by those who have gone before me; those who have given years of broken hearted effort for their children and their sisters. The strong, battle weary, women who are still without justice, in spite of their strength and courage.

I DO NOT support the presumption that DHS is all bad, or has no place in our society. If you are a child abuser, you deserve to have your children removed from your custody.

If you are a parent that needs education to improve your parenting skills, I want you to get that education. If you are so ill that you can not adequately parent, I want you to get the help you need and deserve (which does not include punishment by DHS, but help).

DHS often requests that clients bring in, or sign releases for their clients' medical records. If the existing medical records do not support the allegations made by DHS, they routinely bring in their own psychiatrists.

ese psychiatrists are paid an average of $2,000.00 by DHS (aka Oregon tax payers) for each psychiatric evaluation (psych eval). These evaluations do not include reviewing any of the existing medical documentation that the client has already paid for.

More than a year ago, Liang Di went missing. He was 3 years old at the time and shopping at an outdoor food market in Dongguan, China, with his father and 6-year old brother.

The two boys were playing outside while their father was in a hardware store. A man approached the two brothers on the street and offered them sweets. And then the man took little Di away. The police never launched an investigation.

Indian Babies Dropped 50 Feet for Good Luck in Bizarre Ritual, A jaw-dropping ritual in India has infants plunging 50 feet from a tower to wish them good health.

In a video shot on April 29, "good luck babies" are thrown from the top of a building and onto a sheet during the celebration, which has been celebrated in the Indian state of Maharashtra for 500 years, the U.K.'s Sky News reported Thursday.

With virtually no fanfare, and equally quiet opposition, President Bush has signed into law a plan that orders the government to take no more than six months to set up a national contingency plan to screen newborns' DNA.

Further, the new law requires that the results of that DNA program, including "information ... research, and data on newborn screening" shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and be made available on the Internet.

Ben Stein Says Texas Authorities Are Acting Like The Gestapo By Taking Away The Children Of A Mormon Sect

What the heck is going on in Texas with the kids caught up in the polygamy ranch disaster? Look, I am not a fan of polygamy. For one thing, it's all any man can do keeping up with one wife. For another, it's against the law in this country. But the polygamists that have been in the news have been operating for decades. The authorities knew about it, and them. They didn't do a thing about it for all those years!

The Texas kidnapping authorities are so poorly informed that they aren't even certain precisely how many children they stole from their parents. What they first reported as 416 children seized by the state rose to first to 437, and now to 462.

So, while they can't even manage a simple head count, they nevertheless expect Americans to simply trust their assertion that every single parent of those 462 children constituted a "continuing and immediate danger to their safety" despite the fact that the children are far healthier than the norm, not a single parent has actually been arrested and charged with any form of child abuse and the CPS has publicly conceded that there is no evidence that any of the 130 or more children under five have been abused!